


cover me in stars

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: 4x03, Angst and Feels, Episode Tag, Flint gets hugged good and popper, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9690800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: The two times Captain Flint got a hug before he got a kiss.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Craftnarok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Craftnarok/gifts).



> This is an episode tag for 4x03, so do not read it if you aren't already traumatized by all that.
> 
> This is my first attempt at making SilverFlintMadi happen so there's no sex yet (boo) but I can't believe I'm even writing at all while canon is happening! I blame Laura a little bit for this, but mostly still myself. *points at self* What the hell, self?

There’s a shift in the air, a movement of birdsong as it carries another sound on beating wings, the sound of footfalls hurrying over gravel. This sound of approaching footsteps fills the ruins of the house like an echo of gladiators long gone in the ruins of a Roman arena. Flint looks up towards the roofless sky above his head and is temporarily blinded by a stray ray of sunshine.

And then Madi is there, throwing her arms around his neck, whispering something against his chest with urgent desperation, and Flint isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with his arms. Certainly not with her men watching him the way they are, fierce hawks, ready to strike. Her arms wind tightly around him like a python, she has taken his breath away and Flint’s head begins to buzz from lack of oxygen.

“He’s alive,” he finally understands what she’s been saying. “He’s alive. He’s _alive_.”

“Who?” Flint hears himself ask, from afar. He knows who. Who else would move Madi to hug _him_ , of all people, with their resurrection?

“Silver,” she exhales. Her cheeks are damp and Flint can make out the traces of her tears of joy right there over the delicate shadows of her lower eyelids. “Berringer’s sent men to the Wrecks to arrest him.”

“I must go,” Flint says.

Only when he finally lets her go does Flint realize that he had been clinging on to her as if to an ultimate lifeline.

***

Flint isn’t even aware of his own smile until he sees Silver’s expression mirroring his own. On the way to the Wrecks with Joji and Dooley (the last vestiges of the _Walrus_ ), he told himself to temper his ardor. Madi may have been misinformed. Madi may have been led astray by her own feelings for Silver, by their mutual _friendship_ , and Flint knows better than anyone else that hope is the last thing to die. Which is why he takes that faltering step towards Silver, wiping the bloody blade of his dagger on his trouser leg habitually, needing to reassure himself this isn’t a mirage of his own making.

His eyes rest upon Silver’s face. Truly _rest_ , for the first time in days, as suddenly they can relax in his eye sockets, where they have sat this whole time, holding back unwelcome tears. How preposterous this is - Silver. He should not be looking at Flint this way, as if he’d hung the moon, whether or not he may have just saved his life. Flint wonders if Silver knows, if somewhere deep down he had envisioned Flint midway through taking off his coat to leap into the murky waters after him, and if perchance Silver had already forgiven him for not following through.

But Silver is still smiling at him. A smile so bright that it dims the light around them, and Flint’s entire attention comes to two azure points on either side of Silver’s nose. And Silver hops up to him on one leg, beaming like some demented puppy, not caring of how he looks, not giving a damn what anyone else thinks, oblivious to Joji and Dooley and the ugly sand troll whom Flint recognizes as a ghost from his past but refuses to acknowledge, and says the most ridiculous thing.

“You’re alive.”

It had not occurred to Flint that Silver might have had any doubts on that account.

And then, one hand still on his crutch, Silver’s arm comes to wind around Flint’s ribs, and their bodies press together, so solid and warm, fitting together like pieces of a Chinese puzzle. Flint can practically hear the clicking of his bones and they set themselves against Silver’s bones in an embrace that he is powerless to resist. He holds Silver pressed to his chest and tries not to think about the seconds that tick quietly by.

Their hearts beat against one another in time, finding a steady, mutual rhythm.

 _You’re alive_ , says Silver’s heart.

 _I’ve missed you_ , echoes Flint’s own.

***

Flint supposes that is why it hurts all the more: because his heart has already tethered itself to Silver’s. And with each eager step towards Madi, that connection is strained. It pulls tight as a string, and then it breaks. Flint congratulates himself for hiding it so well as they travel back towards the ruins of the empty house. He does not resent Madi. How could he? He understands very well why she is in love with John Silver. He knows how her eyes feel when they rest upon him because his own eyes feel the same.

Only she knows things that he may never know. The taste of Silver’s skin at night. The taste of his breath in the morning. The rhythm of his heart when they make love.

She holds Silver’s hand as they walk along the gravelly road together, Flint walking behind and cursing his decision because had he but chosen to walk in front he would at least not be subjecting himself to this spectacle. But nor would he be able to see Silver. The long, wind-swept curls that brushed against him when they held each other in the dunes above the Wrecks. The broad expanse of his shoulders that fit almost exactly into the bones of Flint’s own shoulders.

Flint is used to longing for things that he can never have. In his cornucopia of lost dreams, at least Silver is still a living, breathing person, not a shade doomed to forever wander the underworld of Flint’s mind.

But then she turns back - Madi - her eyes sparkling in the sun as she holds John’s hand. And she smiles at Flint. And he can’t help but think of another woman who had spoken of _Don Quixote_ to him. Another woman who had smiled at him much the same way.

***

Night falls upon the house without a roof and the tail end of _Ursa Major_ can be seen from the corner where Flint had seated himself. There is nowhere to hide in this house, nowhere to go for privacy, for peace. It reminds Flint of being in the cage in the Maroon camp, only, instead of bamboo bars, it is the empty windows that form a dark lattice against the night air.

“You do not sleep,” Madi’s voice is a whisper next to Flint’s ear.

“I hardly ever do on the eve of battle,” he confesses to her.

She reaches out and places her hand over Flint’s. “Come with me,” she whispers, pressing his fingers with her own. “He needs you.”

Flint walks out of the ruined house as a somnambulist might. He follows the shadow of Madi’s flowing tunic like a golden thread, his boots sinking into the sand of the dunes around them. The place in his chest where his broken heart lies still throbs, but he must put on a brave face. For John. For Nassau. For the memory of Thomas and Miranda, which shall never be desecrated in the mausoleum of his heart.

She stops, seemingly needing to catch her breath, and turns about to face him, her skin sparkling in the moonlight like a rich onyx. “ _I_ need you,” she says.

Flint swallows. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to stay with us,” she says and averts her eyes. Suddenly Flint remembers how young she must be, Mr. Scott’s daughter. “There are comforts you could offer that I alone cannot,” she adds. “I would be grateful if you stayed.”

Flint makes no audible reply, only motions for her to lead the way, and then he finds Silver sprawled on a thin blanket among the sand dunes, looking as relaxed as if they were taking tea in a salon and not about to walk into a defended city outnumbered ten to one. He sinks onto the sand next to the other man and lets his head hang down, a condemned man awaiting his execution.

“James.” All resistance drains from Flint’s body and he reaches out to touch Silver. “ _James…_ finally.” Silver presses up into his embrace, mouth seeking shelter and finding it against Flint’s open lips. And now Flint too knows what this feels like, the taste and feel of him, the scrape of Silver’s teeth against his lower lip, the warmth of his breath against Flint’s chin. “You saved my life,” Silver whispers against Flint’s mouth, his beard all but tangling up with Flint’s own.

“I hope this isn’t your very misguided way of thanking me for it,” Flint replies.

“Not that I’m keeping score, but you’re still very much in _my_ debt, despite today’s efforts.” Silver chuckles and lets his fingers interlace at the nape of Flint’s neck. As their foreheads come to rest together, Flint is very much aware of Madi’s eyes on them.

“My life is yours,” he responds, his eyes closed, his eyes resting beneath the weight of Silver’s gaze, this man who even in the deepest darkness could still read Flint like an open book. Love is too small a word, Flint thinks, for what he feels. Where the cavity of his chest lay like the ruins of a coliseum before, now a new hope springs. His heart beats again, guided by the rhythm of Silver’s own heart.

He lies down onto the blanket, between the two of them. Madi is pressed against his back, her thin arm wrapping around his waist. Silver is curled up against his chest, his mouth still pressing insistent kisses against Flint’s lips, and then lower, into the sensitive skin of his neck, into the hollow above his clavicles where the humid night air has caused a sheen of perspiration to pool.

“I thought you were dead,” Flint finally whispers into the unruly mop of Silver’s curls, as the new Pirate King kisses a hot trail down his sternum. It feels like an unburdening to say it aloud. Especially now, now that he knows he’s no longer dreaming alone.

Madi’s arm presses reassuringly against Flint’s abdomen, as if in sympathetic reflex, and he’s suddenly grateful that she is here too. Perhaps without her to witness this, Flint might question it all later. His mind cannot be trusted when it comes to conjuring up lost lovers.

“I would never do that to you,” Silver promises, his mouth a burning furnace branding Flint’s skin. “You’ll see.”

Flint isn’t sure if this is false bravado or if Silver is beginning to buy into his own legend. But if one or more of them is destined to fall in the coming battle, at least they would have had _this_. It may still be a thing forbidden, done quietly under the cover of darkness and spoken of in whispers, but it would have still been theirs for the taking. Theirs to share; theirs to keep.


End file.
